Alabama is back at the Supreme Court seeking emergency relief to let the state use a congressional map in the midterm elections that a lower court panel with two Trump appointees deemed intentionally discriminatory against Black voters.
The state wants the justices to immediately halt this week’s panel ruling that said Alabama’s desired redistricting plan is still illegal even after the high court’s 6-3 ruling last month in Louisiana v. Callais, which made it more difficult to bring claims under the Voting Rights Act.
Before the Callais ruling, the Alabama panel had found not only a Voting Rights Act violation but also a direct violation of the Constitution, via intentional discrimination against Black voters. After Callais, the high court split 6-3 along those same partisan lines in ordering the Alabama panel to reconsider its decision in light of Callais. The majority’s order came over dissent from the high court’s Democratic appointees, who argued there was “no reason” for further review, due to the panel’s separate intentional discrimination finding that stood even after Callais.
On that further review, the panel reaffirmed its prior conclusion against the state. Explaining why in an opinion on Tuesday, the three judges on the panel said that they “cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”
The panel rejected the state’s argument that Callais upended its finding of intentional discrimination. In any event, the panel said, the Black voters in the case would likely separately satisfy the Supreme Court’s new Voting Rights Act test from Callais. The three judges on the panel are Stanley Marcus, an appellate judge who was appointed to a district court by Ronald Reagan and then to the appellate court by Bill Clinton, as well as two district judges appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer.
“We emphasize that because of the exceptional public importance of this matter, we carefully reviewed the extensive evidentiary record in these cases with fresh eyes in light of Callais,” the panel said.
The state said Tuesday that it would appeal the panel ruling and made that official on Wednesday. Officials argue to the justices that the panel’s ruling runs afoul of Callais, and they asked the high court to halt it by Monday morning.
Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
The post Alabama seeks Supreme Court’s permission to use map deemed discriminatory appeared first on MS NOW.
